Eliminating waste in construction

there are two classes of waste in construction — physical and process — both are a cost to the constructor

physical construction waste = bricks, blocks, plasterboard offcuts, etc;  the sort of thing you reduce, reuse or recycle

process waste = wasted time or effort, delays, disruption because of process failures.

Eliminating both classes of waste is as much a design issue as a construction one.

The first step is to be very clear about what the customer (client/owner and next-trade-in-line) wants - i.e. value.  Understanding what your customers’ value is important as:

1. delivering value is the goal for both design and construction and
   

2. waste is defined in terms of value - waste = anything that creates no value for the customer
   

Because waste is defined in terms of value, what was waste on the last job may not be waste on this one - it is important to check what your customers want.

the enhanced waste triangle

Toyota’s Taiichi Ohno listed these types of process waste:

1. overproduction 
   

2. waiting 
   

3. transport
   

4. processing
   

5. inventory
   

6. movement 
   

7. making defective products
   

8. not using people's talents
   

9. dangerous working practices 
   

Subsequently other activities have been suggested. For more on these see “Creating value: a sufficient way to eliminate waste in lean design and lean production."